Solis Golf Course must be corporatised

Mayoral candidate Mike Kent says he’ll play a master-stroke and drive the stalled Greg Norman designed Solis Golf Course into the private sector, if he’s successful in the October Glamorgan Spring-Bay elections.

Kent said the project that overlooks Spring Bay and shares boundaries with Orford and Triabunna is perhaps the most visible white-elephant in the municipality that has raised questions about its future since it ground to a halt, almost a decade ago.

“I have keen interest in golfing and am aware of not just the economic dynamics of the sport, but am also realistic of the inherent traps that are part and parcel of developing an 18-hole international course in modern times.”

He said that as a life member and former president of the Tasmania Golf Club, and current president of the Orford Golf Club, he has regular contact with golfing entrepreneurs who agree with his concept of full corporatising of the unfinished Solis Course.

“The siting of the Solis Course, its elevation and design are perfect, but it is most definitely far too big a risk and responsibility for a small council as ours to be funding its development.”

“It started out as a commercial project and should be completed as one.”

“This council did not have an elected mandate to borrow millions and thrust its ratepayers into the precarious unknowns of golf-course development, management and promotion,” Mike Kent said.

“It is an expert-specific project and I will be seeking the advice of experts as to the realities of turning it into an iconic course that will stand alongside those ‘must-play’ courses in Australia, as our own Barnboogle in the north.”

“I will undertake to present an opportunity to investors to take the course on as a full corporatised venture that will be the single most important venture with manifest economic benefits to both the Orford and Triabunna regions and beyond to the entirety of the Eastern seaboard.”

“What is its present development status? Who knows.”

“If elected, like all major projects, it goes on the public table, so that everybody knows.”

“Transparency is a natural expectation or ratepayers and electors … but with this council, they’re not getting it.”

“It simply leads to speculation and harmful misinformation.”

“I heard recently that the new Tassal factory and proposed fish farm project here will create 300 jobs. This is simply not true.”
Glamorgan Spring Bay Mayoral candidate Mike Kent